I have lived through nearly 4,500 weeks in my life, and I have never seen a week like the one we just had.

I have seen weeks of far greater darkness, of war, and death, and economic despair. I have seen weeks of more confusion and uncertainty. But I have never seen a week where a president of our nation has behaved with such a cavalier disregard for the norms and institutions of our democracy. And it now seems like the investigation is expanding into Trump’s business dealings. The comparisons with Richard Nixon are plentiful these days, but even he did not seem so untethered from our basic governance. And I have never seen so many members of a political party rally around incompetence, intemperance, and inanity.

The threats, the lies, the willful disregard for the rule of law should be limited to the world of Hollywood caricature. To see this played out each night on the news, to read about ramblings and inconsistencies in justifications for actions that should never have been taken, is to see a moment of great peril for our nation.

I remain, however, an optimist. I see the swellings of civic engagement and action. I hear the voices of those who demand that this subversion of our national ideals shall not stand. I have covered social movement of the past, and never have seen one where so much power and numbers lie on the side of the opposition. This is a clash for the values of our nation. Our destiny is in our hands.

They forgot to mention voter suppression, intimidation, harrassment, discouragement via microtargeting by Cambridge Analytica, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, etc. “As you can see, the national average hides dramatic differences among states. For example, as we’ve said, the African American turnout rate fell by 4.7 points nationally. But in Michigan and Wisconsin — two key Midwestern states where, to analysts’ surprise, Trump won — black turnout fell by more than 12 points.” As I’ve been arguing since the election, it took an extraordinary combination of unsavory events, including foreign intervention, misogyny and the racism behind disenfranchisement, to get us to Trump.

If you haven’t already gotten a copy, go order Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi. Learn some fascinating American history, ways to be actively anti-racist, and how to identify some racists ideas you are probably holding and promoting without even realizing it. Beautifully written, engaging, and thought provoking. I’ll definitely be reading this again and anxiously awaiting more from this author.